At a recent Carbon County Commissioners meeting earlier this month, officials voiced their stance on data centers after a Tresckow resident asked if the county taken any action regarding a proposed center being constructed in Banks Township.

George Donadi asked if the county had signed a nondisclosure agreement with any land development company currently in Carbon County or Banks Township.

All three commissioners said no.

He then asked if any official entertained a request for an overlay change or zoning change in Banks, to which Commissioners’ Chairman Mike Sofranko responded not that he was aware of. Commissioners Wayne Nothstein and Rocky Ahner both responded, no.

Ahner asked Donadi if there was a problem because of his line of questioning.

Donadi said that as the county knows “there is a big push in the area, data centers, and they’re all coming at everybody to get these zoning changes because what they do, they’re coming in an buying all kind of land that is not zoned industrial and they’re coming at everybody to get these changes.”

County Solicitor Robert Frycklund said that this matter is a local zoning and planning issue and not the county.

Donadi asked if that meant that all of this has to go through Banks, to which Frycklund responded, “Yes, that’s entirely at the local level, not at the county level.”

Donadi then asked if the county supports the three-year moratorium on data center development being proposed by several state senators.

Sofranko said that the county’s position is that data center regulations are a local matter and that the county should not take a formal stance.

“As far as data centers go, where the commissioners as a board stands, we feel that it’s a local issue. We’re here to support whatever the local officials would decide. They know what’s best for their community and each one of those communities and those residents know what they would like in their community and they need to go and voice their concerns to their borough councils, their township supervisors, their planning and development. We won’t allow any of that to get circumvented. ... We will follow the lead of what the local municipalities and townships come back to the board with.”